by Justin D'Ath
Wolfgang thought so, too. ‘Can you give me a hand with this?’
His father lay the umbrella upside down on the grass. ‘What do you want me to do?’
‘Take the pins out.’
Wolfgang held the setting-tray while Leo began removing the pins and strips of paper that secured the black butterfly to its cork mounting. As the first wing came free, there was a tiny but unmistakeable shiver of movement.
‘Good heavens!’ Leo whispered, pulling his hands away. ‘You can’t have used enough cyanide.’
It was Leo who had set the butterfly but Wolfgang didn’t correct him. In any case, he thought, it wasn’t a question of cyanide.
‘Undo the other wing,’ Wolfgang said.
His vision swam as Leo’s trembling fingers freed the second black wing. For a moment nothing happened, then the butterfly slowly closed its wings and opened them again, as if it was waking from a deep sleep. It rose onto its feet and walked jerkily across the cork and on to Wolfgang’s thumb. He held his hand out over Audrey’s grave, not sure what to do.
‘Go,’ he told it, then lowered his voice to a whisper, ‘go and join her.’
The butterfly tested its wings again: open, closed, open.
Then it flew.
Wolfgang helped his father to his feet. Neither of them said a word. Together, father and son watched the big black butterfly circle up into the faded blue of the summer sky. Up it went, up and up and up, a small black dot spiralling skywards, becoming smaller and smaller until Wolfgang was no longer sure he could see anything at all.
